Saturday, 5 April 2014

Easy Chinese Recipes Biography
Source(google.com.pk)Why would a blog dedicated to "Easy Chinese Recipes" feature General Tao's Chicken, a dish virtually unknown in China? For one thing, one of the minimal definitions of tradition is "an artistic or literary method or style established by an artist, writer, or movement, and subsequently followed by others." General Tso's certainly qualifies on that basis, since this dish is served everywhere in the world by Chinese chefs in Chinese restaurants--everywhere, in fact, except China, and with some surprising degree of consistency. Further, if we think of the mainland as the "go to" authority, consider that General Tso's Chicken was invented in China, by a Chinese chef, and while it faded from view in Mainland China, it made its way from there to Taipei, to the United States, and evolved, as most traditions do, to become the famous dish we know today. (I'd venture to say this may all be a moot point anyway, since the ever-wealthier China absorbs so many cultural trends of the West, so the worldwide popularity of General Tso's Chicken will someday make it as much a traditional dish in China as it is here.) The history of this dish has been thoroughly described by at least two authors. Fuchsia Dunlop gives an excellent account, and a recipe for the unsweetened Hunanese version, originated by chef Peng Chang-kuei, in her excellent book, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Similarly, Jennifer 8. Lee describes with delicious humor her search for the original General Tso's Chicken in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.The attraction of this dish is doubtless in its simplicity of flavor and texture-- the chicken is chewy/crisp on the outside, moist on the inside, all drenched in a dark, spicy, sweet and tangy sauce. The secret to a chewy/crisp exterior is double frying, utilized by Chinese chefs in a number of dishes where crispness of an otherwise moist item is desired.Here is another delicious mainstay of the tea ritual known as dim sum, and belongs to the class of dumplings enfolded with a wheat starch wrapper. The name in Cantonese is Gao Choi Ha Gao 韭菜虾饺, or simply Gao Choi Gau (In Mandarin, Jiu Cai xia Bao). You will find this steamed dumpling in almost every dim sum restaurant, although it will sometimes be formed into hockey-puck sized packets, and fried. In either case you'll know it by the intensely green vegetable showing through the translucent wrapper. Like cilantro, Chinese garlic chives, jiu cai might strike some as an acquired taste. Once accustomed to its sharp and fragrant flavor, however, it becomes an essential sensation for lovers of dim sum.China has invented a lot of stuff, to say the least. There are a few obvious things that everyone knows that China invented like silk, porcelain (a.k.a china), tea, and chopsticks. However, there is a good chance you have not heard of some of these things, and likely attribute them to other nations.It is rather well known that paper was invented by China, but did the Chinese also invented paper money in the ninth century AD. They also used their paper to make kites, in the sixth century AD. As pleasant as the paper and kites are, other Chinese inventions are a bit less “nice”.